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Thursday, June 6, 2013

marathon planning

when I knew I was ready to conquer a marathon I thought about hiring a coach. someone else to tell me what to do and when to do it and how hard. someone to provide me with encouragement. sure I was ready to fork over the money it would cost. but at least there would be someone holding me more accountable for my workouts than just myself and the dog.

then when I joined the What’s Beautiful campaign sponsored by Under Armour and declared my goal on there I suddenly began rethinking the hiring of a marathon coach. when I asked around about how people felt about running coaches and if they were worth it or not one person told me, “you don’t need a coach, you already know what you’re doing.” and that smacked me right in the face when I got a 4 minute PR this past weekend at my half marathon. even though it was a downhill/flat course. I am confident that I was fully ready and hungry for that PR. I had trained hard for this race. probably harder than I ever had for a half.

so instead of hiring a marathon coach….I’m asking you all to hold me accountable to my own schedule.

once a week I’ll blog about my planned runs and workouts for the week and the following week I will check in with the previous week. for 18 weeks. and I want to hear from all of you if I’m not living up to what I should be doing.

I’m a little behind on this week.

my body has been exhausted.

after my half on sunday I had planned to take monday and tuesday off to get back to feeling 100%. by tuesday afternoon I was itching to run which I knew was a good sign. monday, however, was a totally different story. my hamstrings were super tight. I already have tight hamstrings….but this was bad. and my hips were super stiff and sore. other than that I came away feeling ok. by tuesday by hips felt better and my hamstrings weren’t nearly as tight.

this will be the first time running 4 days a week and the first time running 3 days back to back to back.

I’m only a little concerned with the cross training on mondays. I had been doing it twice a week last training cycle and then my ankle started to throb like no other and it was affecting my runs. so I took out the cross training and tried to determine if the running was also hurting my ankle. which surprisingly it wasn’t. I was ok going forward, but any side to side just didn’t sit well with my ankle. so we’ll incorporate the cross training and see how it goes. also depending on time I would like to add in lifting once a week to my schedule. may be pulling some two-a-days.

this week….

monday and tuesday were rest days…easy enough.

wednesday, thursday, and friday were scheduled 3 mile days.

I knew if I wasn’t feeling 100% by tuesday night I would take wednesday off also. but a run on wednesday was exactly what I needed.

tuesday night a fellow trainer, M, from the gym called to chat a little and then she asked if we could run together! Oh. MY. GOSH! my prayers had been answered. someone else asking ME to go for a run! it was perfect! I couldn’t say yes fast enough.

she came up to my house. I grabbed my dog and all 3 of us took off for a brisk 3 mile jaunt around my neighborhood. my hamstrings felt fabulous after that. I was so happy to get that first run under my belt.

today (thursday) I went to the gym early and then came home and crawled into bed. I hadn’t slept well at all but wasn’t wanting to take a nap later in the day (although I almost did). I got up and ran a check to the bank. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t short on mileage and took a longer first loop. I actually ended up being a mile long. so today I got 4 miles accomplished! I felt great running back to back days and I’m excited to run tomorrow also!

I have no doubt that I will finish out this week strong and next week looks to be very similar.

I’ll catch up with you in a few days!

remember I’m counting on YOU to help hold me accountable to accomplish my big goal of finishing a marathon!